Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

On that morning she breezed into the room with the haughty assurance of a beloved monarch. She did not even wish Lowell good morning but instead assumed her usual pose against her favourite backdrop: a canvas sheet painted with a classical motif, three ruined columns like a row of broken teeth.

Lowell had already positioned Patrick’s camera on the tripod and focused the lens. The plate was loaded, the flash box readied, and he wasted no time in going beneath the hood.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Her pose spoke for itself. She stood perfectly erect, one arm draped over the Brady stand, and turned her face from the camera so that she appeared in profile.

He lifted the flash box with one hand and sighted the widow through the viewfinder. He steadied his fingers over the triggers for flash and shutter and began to count down, whispering the numbers to himself in the blackness of the hood.

Three. Two. One .

The widow changed.

Her brown curls turned wiry and grey even as her cheekbones sloped inward and stretched the mottled skin to breaking. From beneath her sallow flesh there emerged the outline of a skull, which threatened to burst from the tattered sinews of her once-beautiful face. Even her teeth, usually white, had become brown and stained by the corruptions of the grave.

Lowell wanted to close his eyes but in the manner of a nightmare found that he could not — not even when the tail of a worm thrust out from behind her ear, puncturing the skin so that a shower of corpse dust drifted to the ground.

“Well?” the widow inquired. Her voice, at least, was unaltered, but the coolness of her tone did nothing to dispel the image in the viewfinder. “Is something wrong?”

“Ah — um?”

Sweat poured from Lowell’s brow.

“What is the delay?”

The widow turned to face him. Her eyes were gone: the sockets empty, rimmed with pitted bone. A mass of white worms writhed within the hollow of her skull.

He released the trigger on the flash box. The magnesium ignited and a wave of cleansing light flooded the room. Somehow he possessed the presence of mind to open and close the shutter, capturing the widow in a blast of white lightning.

He wrenched his head from the hood and dashed to the side cabinet. There he found the brandy bottle, untouched in the days since his conversion. His heart galloped, fuelling his panic, and his lungs heaved in his chest — faster and faster, refusing to slow.

He poured himself a glass. He gulped it down.

“Whatever is the matter?” Mrs Perkins asked. “You’re acting most peculiarly.”

The room shimmered, retreating from Lowell as the alcohol took hold. He clenched his eyes shut. He shook his head but could not speak.

“Open your eyes,” she snapped. “Look at me!”

It required all of his courage for Lowell to lift his head and address the widow. Her appearance had returned — mercifully — to normal. She peered at him through the lenses of her silver lorgnette, her magnified eyes more hawk-like than ever.

“I’m — quite well,” Lowell gasped. “It’s the — weather. My gout—”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad it’s nothing serious,” she said. “Did you get the picture?”

He shivered. He poured another glass and drained it in a swallow. Tears leapt to his eyes as the familiar ache spread through his chest. Mrs Perkins sniffed in disapproval, but at that moment, he scarcely cared. Even the thought of that photograph chilled him to the marrow.

“Well?” she demanded. “Shall we take another?”

“No,” he said quickly. “There’s — no need.”

“Good.” She cast a scornful glance at the glass in his hand. “I shall come by later this week to collect it. Good day.”

She proceeded to the door and let herself out.

The catch slammed behind her.

Lowell gulped down another drink. The alcohol steadied his hands somewhat but could not drive out the images that crowded about him. When he shut his eyes, he saw the widow as she had appeared through the viewfinder: gaping eye-sockets, the skull that surfaced from beneath her thinning skin. Other images too. Blue eyes, bruises. A palm-print on white skin.

He poured a fourth glass and contemplated the liquid for a full minute before returning it to the bottle. Already he regretted this return to his old habits. Guilt rose like a tumour in his throat, an ever-familiar gorge he could not spit out or swallow.

He mopped the sweat from his brow. Turning his attention to more material concerns, he replaced the bottle in the side cabinet and went into the darkroom to ready the developer.

In the years since his conversion, Lowell had come to see the development process as a kind of miracle. While he was familiar with the various chemical principles at work, he could not but marvel at the thing itself, which he understood as a singular indicator of God’s grace. To watch a human face form on albumen paper, to see it slowly assume shape, its fine lines betraying either hope, or grief, or pain—

In those moments, Lowell admitted, his very soul ached, and he imagined the birth of the planet from the void, the first word of light like the flash of torched magnesium.

But that morning he found no joy in developing the plate. His hands shook with fright, and his fingers kneaded the flesh of his palms, his nails drawing blood as the positive image formed on the albumen.

His fears proved baseless. The widow Perkins appeared looking much as she always did. While her pose was slightly different — for here she looked directly into the camera, confusion playing on her features — the photograph closely resembled the three dozen he had already taken of the widow. In no way did it hint at the horror he had witnessed through the viewfinder.

He made a second print of the photograph and left the darkroom, feeling neither terror nor relief — only a persistent unease. He settled himself down in a chair beside the window and allowed his gaze to stray into the street.

Snow continued to fall. Nearly an inch had accumulated in the last hour, covering over muck and dirtied straw. The clustered roofs and gambrels of the block opposite bore a fine dusting, as iridescent and fine as a poplar’s cotton. Even the soot-black stacks of the distant metal-works appeared white and pure, standing like twin ghosts against the horizon, holding back the early dark. Soon the city would be covered, first by snow and then by night — all beauty and squalor erased by the whispered sough of white on black.

His sleep proved shallow and troubled, haunted by visions of blazing cities and crumbling churches, the worm-filled skull of the widow Perkins. To his relief, he was roused by the sound of the bell. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and went to answer.

He opened the door to reveal a clerk from the post office. The young man was clearly possessed of a nervous disposition. His eyes darted furtively from side to side, settling on Lowell seemingly by accident.

“Your wire, sir—”

“Yes?”

“It came back, sir.”

“Came back?”

“Could not be delivered, sir.”

“Has he moved?” wondered Lowell, half to himself.

“I don’t know, sir,” said the clerk, miserably.

“Then find out!” snapped Lowell. “Wire New York and see what you can learn from them. Then try sending the message through again. It’s — important.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“Good.”

The clerk looked down at his feet. His natural nervousness grew more apparent with every second he lingered on the stoop.

Lowell sighed, regretting his outburst. “Go on then,” he said, as gently as he could manage. “I’ll try and drop by later. That should save you the trip.”